i command armies

[autokinetic]

Sue graduates from Tactical School a year early, he's barely fifteen. He's toned down the flirting - he treats Aegis completely platonically, in particular - and has cut down on the unhealthy amount of sleeping-with-everything-that-wants. And he's apparently, via his independent study, gotten far enough through the curriculum that they're nudging him along to Command.

They've given Sue a strange old man for a tutor, who appeared in his room and started a physical confrontation, which Sue won; Sue related this story to her with something between amusement and irritation.

And a quicker-than-average flurry of notes has been piling up in the psych data since about that time, according to the timestamps.

Aegis knows before they tell her that they're going to send her to Command early too. She's just barely fifteen herself when she gets another update of the psych files and sees that Sue's had - well, the files aren't terribly clear, some of the communication is happening via in-person conversation and memos that don't get stored in these folders, but Sue's had some kind of breakdown and the only things they can think of to get him out of it, get him back into shape to train and fight, are her friendship and Howlett. They have mixed feelings about both - Howlett's insubordination problem; their bewilderment that Aegis and Sue can be so close when "she's the one person he can't link!" - but they're desperate.

Bird? They don't talk as often over the long distance, just as there was a lull when he went to Tactical ahead of her; their schedules have nothing in common and their contexts less. But he knows her, and he can reach this far if he tries. And she wants to know what's wrong.

Comments

[autokinetic]

"You okay, my bird?"

[pythbox]

"Fine." Snuggle. "Hugs are nice. I like hugs."

[autokinetic]

"They are nice," she agrees. "Are you going to hold up okay, do I need to keep one finger hovering over that button now...?"

[pythbox]

"...No...? I mean, yes I'm gonna hold up fine, no you don't need to be waiting to pounce if I suddenly crack."

[autokinetic]

"Okay." Penny for your thoughts, bird.

[pythbox]

My thoughts are I'm confused why you think I might go haywire over this, he sends back.

[autokinetic]

'Cause we're commanding soldiers lightyears away in an invasion we didn't know existed years before we're supposed to and I'm kinda surprised I'm not going haywire.

[pythbox]

Sue hugs her.

[autokinetic]

Ah, hugs.

How leaky is the link when people are in it deeper than I go? Will the jeesh find out anyway if we don't tell them?

[pythbox]

Nothing leaks unless I send it, but... I might slip up, he says. There's a lot to think about.

[autokinetic]

So... the obvious options are, tell them now, let them digest it and see who threatens to snap before we put them back in front of a simulator, or, tell them if and only if you can link up the fleet commanders and it's going to become obvious anyway.

[pythbox]

You know most of these people better than me, he says. Who do you think will snap?

[autokinetic]

I think Blue Moon and Ahmed and Screwdriver are okay, I'm less sure about Qiaochu but I wouldn't put money on snapping unless I got damn good odds - what about yours?

[pythbox]

Orion's fine, he says. I don't know about Henrik.

[autokinetic]

I think I know why Rackham was waking you up at night. They must be seriously limited in how they can schedule these battles; it'll be a miracle if we never have to split and do two at once. We're going to have to be up and at 'em on negligible notice whenever they run into the buggers they mean to fight. They needed to see how you'd take that. That's going to be hell on all of us. I think we should unilaterally give them days off so we're not dealing with sleep-deprived as well as overpressured soldiers. ...Can you relay in your sleep?

[pythbox]

...I have no idea.

[autokinetic]

You should probably try it tonight, Aegis says, not with me, I'm a bad test, ask Qiaochu or one of yours.

Then she pauses.

Something has occurred to her.

"Why," she says aloud, "are there people on the ships? We can take control of them remotely. Why aren't they unmanned drones set up for remote control for a computer or a larger group of Sol-orbiting remote pilots to handle?"

[pythbox]

"Don't look at me," shrugs Sue. "Maybe they didn't think of it. Maybe they didn't care."

[autokinetic]

"That's - I've been updating a lot in favor of the I.F. is run by amoral idiots lately, but that's just staggering even after all that. Why send people? The expense - the difficulty of keeping it quiet, all those families back home who'd have to be told that their soldier relatives were dead - even if they thought they might not find their genius commander and wanted to be able to turn over the battles to non-geniuses, there's no reason to have those non-geniuses physically with the fleet. They weren't expecting you with your particular mutation to make it potentially invaluable to have brains over there, and even if they'd seen you coming it'd be just as easy for you to link brains over here. The unconventional inputs wouldn't be a tremendous loss, not compared to all those people. So - what do they need the people for -"

She thinks.

"To land," she speculates finally. "Colonies. We're gonna wipe out the buggers and take all their stuff."

[pythbox]

"Maybe," says Sue.

[autokinetic]

"If it's not that, then the I.F. are such amoral idiots that I might puke the next time I see a grownup," says Aegis frankly.

[pythbox]

Sue laughs.

You should take over, he sends cheerfully. I'd back you in a second.

[autokinetic]

If we win this thing they'll probably make us all admirals and give us desk jobs and then I will fuck some shit up.

[pythbox]

Aegis is the beeeeeeeeeeeeeest. He sends to that effect.

[autokinetic]

But first we have to win. The I.F. might be amoral idiots but they're not the only ones in the line of fire if we don't get the buggers before they get us.

"Can you link up Ahmed? I want to see if he's up for talking to Rackham about buggers for us," says Aegis.